The Nashville Predators have earned the No. 5 overall selection in the 2025 NHL Draft following the results of the NHL Draft Lottery on Monday evening.
After finishing third from the bottom of the standings following the 2024-25 season, the Preds had 11.5 percent odds to win the Lottery and slot first in the upcoming Draft, but the odds were greater to slip to fourth or fifth. After the New York Islanders won the first drawing to earn the No. 1 overall pick, the Utah Hockey Club won the second draw and moved up to fourth, forcing the Predators to the fifth overall spot.
However, the Preds now have a Top 5 pick in the NHL Draft for just the third time in franchise history, and they’re confident an excellent player will still be available for them to select fifth overall at the Draft in Los Angeles on June 27.
“We're still going to get a good player to add to our pool,” Preds General Manager Barry Trotz said following the conclusion of the Lottery. “It all depends on what happens in front of us in terms of the teams. I'll try to get a better handle on that, as I’m sure all the teams are now in their draft meetings… But I feel very confident we're going to get a good player.”
The Predators are currently holding their annual scouting meetings in Nashville this week, and now that they know where they’ll be making their first pick this year, the planning becomes a bit clearer.
“I feel that even moving back a couple spots in number five, we're going to get a good player,” Trotz said. “I don’t have any doubt about that. What it might do, depending on once we get the order, we're probably going to put a couple of plans into place. I'll have to make some phone calls and follow through with some of our plans… Once we get [everything] in order, we'll try to figure out what everybody else is doing and have a few plans in place to go in the direction we need.”
Of course Trotz and the Preds would have preferred to win the Lottery and earn the top pick, but the GM says the final results don’t drastically change how the front office will be mapping things out over the few weeks until Nashville is officially on the clock at the end of June.
“I think at five, we’re still going to have a good player,” Trotz said. “I think the options are, depending on what happens in the four picks before us, will send us in different directions, and I think we'll be trying to maneuver with our picks, either to move up or move back or to collect extra picks. Maybe we move them back here. There's all those scenarios that we'll go through, and what we decide on in terms of and where we go with that. Some of it will be reactionary… There’s a lot of different options. And ask me right now the exact path we're taking, I couldn't give you that until we get through all these meetings, the scouting meetings, and then a lot of phone calls and conversations after that.
“I think this is just another piece that is going to be very, very valuable for this franchise going forward, for hopefully a decade or more. This is a very important draft for us. I know we're going to get a really good player, and we're going to keep adding those.”
The 2025 NHL Draft is set for June 27-28 in Los Angeles. Stay tuned to NashvillePredators.com in the weeks ahead for all you need to know as the Preds prepare for the Draft and beyond.
